It seems that poor HTC can’t seem to catch a break, not only is Samsung killing them in the Android arena; but have even managed to outmatch them in WP sales, surprising I know. It’s always seemed as if Samsung didn’t really care about their WP line-up of phones, with a paltry selection of exclusive apps compared to Nokia, and an even smaller selection of phones. Interestingly however they still managed to sell over a million units last quarter (vs. Nokia’s 7.1 Mil) giving them a market share of 11.5% (I think this is WP8 market share and not 7+8? could be wrong though).

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I find it weird that Samsung with almost no effort sold 1 million devices while Nokia struggled to sell 2-3 mil not so long ago, even though they pumped tons of previous marketing dollars into it. Is this the effect of riding Nokia’s coat-tails of WP success? Or has “Samsung” become a reputable brand name (god forbid). With Samsung in 2nd place HTC slipped down to 3rd with 4.6& and Huawei retained fourth with 2.3%.

Either way I think this is good news, seeing that if Samsung’s stake in WP increased they might take it more seriously, increasing OS awareness and bringing in more developers; what do you guys think?

Hey, my name's Ali- Currently a fifth (and final) year Dental Student from Chicago; studying in Jordan. I love all sorts of gadgets almost as much as I love my cookies! Be sure to follow my Twitter handle @AliQudsi and Subcribe to my Youtube for the latest videos - no pressure. Thanks.

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Werner Ruotsalainen

Probably it’s because their brand that they sold better than HTC. After all, HTC’s WP8 models were, IMHO, better and/or have better price/value ratio.

This is why I got the 8S for a low-end development machine and not a Samsung.

Nokia would be able to sell few million Android phones too if CEO wouldn’t be against this!

zlutor

Samsung produce and sell whatever consumers are willing to buy.
They do not bother with exclusivity…

Might they be wrong?

Janne

Come on. Samsung is as exclusive as the next guy, their WP efforts are as lax as they can be and they dumped Symbian for Android in 2010. It is not like they have multiple real smartphone platform efforts on the market.

LOL

Samsung will kill nokia in wp too hahaha!!!
sam ftw

dss

if they decide to.. Yes, they can. They are in a much better manufacturing position than nokia

zlutor

Not to mention their financial position…

Yes, they can kill Nokia anytime they wish. They have nothing else to do but starting price war in WP arena and Nokia is done.

They could back it ‘forever’ from their Android income.
Yes, that may be illegal to some extent but with ‘creative accounting’ they could do it until Nokia collapses.

The only reason they did not do it might be they just simple do not want to do it…

who knows

Oh come on, do you really think Samsung single handily could drive a global competitor out of business with predatory pricing? First of all, you should remember that currently Nokia smartphone-business is around 25 % (guestimate) of Nokias total sales, so to push Nokia to bankruptcy through smartphones is an extremely difficult task just by going at it with smartphones. Secondly it is illegal (in many countries) and the legal aspect would/could be a disaster for Samsung (risk/reward). Thirdly Samsung would destroy their biggest stream of revenue by cutting its prices for their smartphone business in order to even try to ‘kill’ one competitor. Samsung would be mad to try what you guys are suggesting.

zlutor

Ok, I didn’t mean whole Nokia, of curse, but smartphone part. Samsung would not endander too mutch of its profit in WP arena…

Selling massive amount of wp phones with almost no profit is not illegal but it would hurt Nokia badly…

About rest of Nokia: good question how long they could finance that situation…

who knows

You think that Samsung putting in a lot of effort into WP would hurt Nokia while I think it would help Nokia. Seeing how long it has taken Nokia to establish its software services into WP you think that Samsung just can steamroll into it with perfect products at every price point? I think not. Besides, what kind of services could Samsung possibly offer to the potential customer that would be superior to Nokias?

And the biggest flaw in this reasoning is that you see this as Samsung vs. Nokia while from Samsungs perspective it is Samsung vs. Nokia/LG/APPLE/……../ZTE. Trying to lower once prices to undercut everyone else (it wouldn’t just be Nokia they would undercut) it would be extremely risky and most likely rendering in complete failure.

Random Random

Why couldn’t a single company drive a global competitor out of business? Apple did that to Nokia with the iPhone. They manufactured a superior product and effectively killed Nokia in the high end. What was left was wiped out by Android manufacturers.

who knows

You are missing the point of what we are discussing here.

Companies goes out of business all the time but not because one company decides to push its competitor out of the cliff. It is ultimately up to consumers to decide which companies that will go out of business and which that will be prosperous, if Nokia will ‘leave’ the smartphone business it will be from the very same reason, not because Samsung decides it.

Andy

I don’t think that will happen. For the simple reason that majority of the Lumia customers bought Lumia not because it was a Windows Phone but because it is by Nokia.

Samsung might get some more sales but that will come from Samsung’s android customers. Nokia has done what Samsung has done in Android. Even at this early point of their growth, Nokia advertises what Nokia software can achieve and not what WP OS can achieve. Lumia has become synonimus to WP for a simple reason that there were no worthy competitors.

Still, Samsung’s growth is a good news because it will help the platform a lot. Samsung has some brand image and there are still people who buy samsung without bothering about what OS it runs. So, ideally the OS base will grow.

I would be delighted if MS could convince few of the Chinese OEMs to make Windows phones. If that happens WP will see a massive growth in a short span of time (as Android did).

pao13

idc made a mistake(is giving to nokia 81.6)….the sales are 7.4 million not 7.1, so the accurate presentage is 85.1!

Ali Abdulla

“I find it weird..”
more like disturbing..
there was a thread about this in wpcentral’s forums, if samsung felt the heat from nokia, or decided to take WP seriously. they can easily flood the market with devices(and ads, especially ads… :S).. suffocating nokia out etc…

i think sadly they can “easily” do that, IF they decided to… but for now, they just dont take Nokia seriously

Random Random

Yes.

Samsung can match almost any product Nokia is able to do with the smartphones. Samsung is currently a very powerful company.

Ady

Read again carefully, Samsung may be a big company with huge amounts of money, but they’ll never match Nokias products in terms of quality and innovation

Random Random

Sales matter.

Quality and innovation are just words. People said Symbian based products had quality and innovation while in reality they were crap and losing unit sales in high end.

Ady

That’s called marketing, 21th century is just about what the media says… Most people like what they are told to like, whatever…
Symbian-based products (N8, C7, E7 and ofc 808 just to name few of them) are among the finest pieces of pure quality I have ever seen in smartphones. Especially the N8; among the best industrial designs to exist, plus tank durability, and packed with tons of innovations that the competition is still catching up with.

CyberAngel

Symbian is STILL the best SmartPhone OS.
I have tried them all!
Using the cheapest and the best of the best.

Random Random

Yes, Symbian was not a modern smartphone OS. It was a blast from the past.

ceegii63

Unlocked ATIV S is at $300(equivalent) here in the Philippines so people would rather ATIV S than 8X or 8S which are still in the $500 and $400 price tags

gerald

HTC products are overpriced and they’re not even better than Samsung. Samsung makes the perfect all-rounders and their phones are the most complete feature-wise.

tushar

Samsung ….zero innovation… Atleast show some innovation in your design …following the same dumb models design frm years…come on … Do the new….

Timo

People are just stupid. They will even buy shet in plastic covers if there is reading Samsung.

But for WP I hope it’s good news.

Ammad

+1

ethan

If and its a big if Samsung begin to push windows phone in a big way, that will undoubtedly bring users and app developers to the operating system giving windows phone the publicity it rightly deserves, but it does not mean Nokia will be pushed out of the windows phone market as users will begin to look at other devices running the OS, and with devices like the lumia 920 and 1020 (im not a fan of the 925) users will have a difficult decision in denying these devices as they are undoubtedly brilliant pieces of hardware, obviously Samsung devices will try to take them on, but i feel it would be a difficult road with both persuading android to turn to windows phone, and taking on a Hardware partner that Microsoft really has to take care of, due to a large portion of the success of windows phone down to the partnership between the hardware and software vendors.

von

Samsung android phones basically set the tone for all samsung products. The popularity of It trickles down to their TVs etc. Which Sony failed to realize.

Hary

Not only TVs, but also monitors, refrigerators, etc.
I do believe Samsung is currently a stronger brand(not necessarily better) than Nokia unfortunately.

Nokia needs to diversify their products. Currently they are only known for mobile phones even though they have maps and NSN unit. Hardly anyone else is aware of non-mobile phone business of Nokia.
Even their audio accessories, if they make it so that they are well compatible with non-Nokia devices also, they can gain mindshare.

Rey

I think WP need a refresh UI.
I have used Lumia more than 1 year, and now I feel booring with the User Interface

Hary

I guess, you are one of those people who gets bored easily. so best for you to keep switching OS every year.

Rey

NO, I love Windows Phone and the Live Tiles.
But I have used Lumia for 1 year and 6 months.
Now I feel boored, need more UI which could be little customized

shihuzaan

i felt the same. i guess it is the nature of people.

Dan

Using Harmattan UI on N9 for almost 2 year. Never felt any need to customize it

e.zaharias

I think it has more to do with the fact that you can get the Ativ S unlocked for 200 euros now. I admit I was even tempted for a few seconds before I remembered I dislike everything that company represents.
I went with a grey Lumia 920 instead for 301 euros just 2 hours ago.
For the average person though that 200 euro Samsung must be very enticing. It is just 20 euros more expensive than a Lumia 620 which though I admire more is on a different league. They are killing the market for Nokia at that price they’re selling, directly from Amazon too.

It is rubbish imo but admittedly has good specs and many don’t understand the difference or even if they do choose to rationalise it when confronted with that price.

Keith too

“I find it weird that Samsung with almost no effort sold 1 million devices while Nokia struggled to sell 2-3 mil not so long ago, even though they pumped tons of previous marketing dollars into it”

Samsung knows better than to sign self-defeating exclusive deals with carriers. Samsung picks of a lot of sales because of Nokia’s exclusive deals. I saw this happen at a client site a couple of weeks ago. I got someone interested in WP from demoing my L920. I didn’t know he was going to buy so I was surprised when showed up with an Ativ soon after. It was the only choice on Bell. Nokia has shut itself out of 3/4 of the North American market and are getting very little in return for it.

guerrahp

Nokia and Microsoft WP needs to understand to give people “what they want” not “what you have.” Control the ecosystem if you must but there is no point in reinventing the wheel. So many features are way overdue and some do not need to taken away.

Totally Agree! No Android user will part with their microSD. We all have “baggage” files that we do not part with…old photos, old song, old text..whatever. Asking established smartphone users to start over in WP with no microSD, is just not gonna happen. Of course Nokia pairs their great cameras with no microSD slots in their newest Flagships…PureDumb

DesR85

Gee… have those people ever heard of a laptop or a PC? I always copy photos, music, videos, etc. from my phone to the PC, so it is safe to assume that they do that too, unless they are really that oblivious to the existence of either one or both.

guerrahp

If Samsung decided to flood the WP market, Nokia is toast. One swoop.

theflew

Actually flooding the marketing would probably help Nokia.

1) It would cause developers to write apps for WP because of the increased market share and another large vendor getting involved besides Nokia.

2) Nokia is seen as the market leader for WP (>80%). So they would get some percentage of increased WP sales. So if you’re Samsung with your hands deep into Android what’s the motivation to “really” support WP?

Until Samsung releases a true flagship WP device that isn’t a Galaxy rehash, they are doing little to push WP.

doctorbayo

If Samsung decides to do this, or do that they will take over this or that as some people are saying here but look guys, it might not necessarily be successful for them. Look at their PC and Camera arms. In both of this divisions they are far from being among first 5 to manufacturers.

n8thebest

So many clueless posters here unfortunately. You make a good point.

The fact is, NO, Samsung cannot just “easily” take out or suffocate Nokia in Windows Phone devices. If Samsung decided to put in a huge amount of effort into Windows Phone, first of all that would GREATLY impact Samsung’s dominance in the Android market. It would pull away a lot of resources that they use on the Android side.

Second of all, Samsung would not have the same support and exclusive API access that Nokia has with Microsoft and Windows Phone. Nokia would still continue to receive exclusive access to the Windows Phone kernel and APIs, and Microsoft would still continue to develop Windows Phone mostly according to Nokia’s needs and requirements.

Furthermore, Samsung devices would not have the exclusive Nokia apps that come on Lumia devices only. Samsung’s exclusive apps for their ATIV phones have been terrible so far.

Years ago when Windows Phone 7 first came out, Samsung had a decent amount of support from Microsoft. Samsung then ignored Windows Phone, and Microsoft foolishly continued to give technical and financial support to Samsung. This continued until the debut of Windows Phone 8, where Microsoft realized that Samsung didn’t care about Windows Phone, so they stopped providing technical and financial support to Samsung. Samsung burned its bridge with Microsoft, and building a new bridge is going to be extremely hard.

With Microsoft mostly backing Nokia, it will be extremely hard for Samsung to become dominant in Windows Phone, if they decided to put effort into it.

zlutor

Do you really think Microsoft will not give ANYTHING Samsung asks for if Samsung declares strong commitment for WP?

who knows

Give what exactly?

zlutor

Whatever ‘exclusivity’ currently Nokia receives-if any…

Marketing support, etc.

who knows

Sure, some marketing support. That has already happened before so it wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if they continued to do that. I thought you had something bigger in mind since you used capital letters in describing how much Microsoft would give Samsung in tribute for their full support.

chainsmoker

It seems to me that Samsung is calculating all volumes in full millions – and always rounding upwards.

E.g. based on game download statistics, ativ s volumes have seemingly been ca. 1/10 of this value.

Koreans make good phones but seem to have some problems in calculating them. LG’s >10M sold smartphones per quarter is another good example of this…

n8thebest

The “problem” the Koreans have is uncontrollable greed and desperation. That’s why they constantly lie, cheat and mislead in so many areas. Their “problem” with reporting the numbers is simply a desperate greedy attempt to make sales numbers appear higher than they actually are in reality.

chainsmoker

I personally trust the phone sales numbers of Sony, Apple and Nokia (and blackberry). The remainings are “statistics”…

n8thebest

Yes indeed. The Chinese smartphone makers don’t seem to “round up” their numbers, but I’m not totally sure on that one.

As for the Koreans, third parties that track smartphone sales are more trustworthy that the numbers from the Koreans themselves.

chainsmoker

Actually you should be careful with the third party numbers. Namely the strategy for many seems to be not publish the numbers officially, but to inform the analysts (IDC, Gartner, etc.) “privately and inofficially” instead. Thus the third parties have not invented the figures themselves.

Random Random

Nokia was also doing that with the application sales numbers.

While Apple reported app sales not including updates and redownloads, Nokia was reporting downloads including updates and redownloads.

Janne

Samsung is a formidable player, thanks to both their vertical integration (something Nokia can’t really directly compete with) and making smart (and some questionable) moves through the post-iPhone smartphone revolution.

Samsung today is in the position Nokia was some years ago, when they could label anything with their brand and it would sell some simply based on that. (Remember the comments from the old Symbian boss trusting that Nokia could ship any crap.)

So, clearly Samsung can both bring the brand and the cost-control to things like ATIV S, even while pretty much ignoring the whole product.

That is to be respected. No question about it. Samsung has done some really right and great moves over the years. If only Nokia’s response to the iPhone would have been as laser-focused.

j

well i strongly doubt that samsung is such a strong brand. at least here in austria. i know so many people who have problems with a samsung phone.

DesR85

Well, in my country, Malaysia, they’re no. 1, despite hearing and reading of complaints of lag from the low-end to their flagships, serious hardware defects such as an SD card burnt to crisp brown in one phone, etc.

I just wonder how they managed to get away with that and still sell a lot of phones.

v.s.i

Meh, Samsung has been planning an exit strategy for some time. I don’t think they’ll execute it, but if they do – gradually phasing out Android devices in favor of Tizen-based ones – it’ll be much easier for Nokia and quite a blow to Google.

dss

Software/platform independence is key, and Samsung know that very well. In some ways they are what Nokia used to be, and they will be what Nokia could have been if they stuck to their guns..

who knows

Nokia lost their edge by going on software alone. That ‘key’ didn’t help Nokia at all.

Janne

dss: Software/platform independence is key, thinks Samsung, and adopts Symbian and then Android?

Come on. Samsung fiddles with Tizen. I know Tomi Ahonen thinks it will be the second ecosystem in like two years, but let’s be real.

dss

The fact that they are even considering their own platform is telling enough.. especially when you know how well they are doing with google’s ad distributing platform.

Prasenjit Singh Bist

Well this is called snow ball effect, Samsung is a master scavenger.
Just rewind a little and think about Android who created the brand awareness around Android, it was done by companies like HTC Corp and Motorola and small players.. when Android started catching the wave Samsung made its master move.

Who knew Windows Phone no one outside the tech geeks, come Nokia spends millions and now many know about the oS better than 2011 and then a buyer walks in to a phone store:

buyer: hello u got some WP stuff.

seller: oh yeah we have a Nokia lumia great this great that and it costs 599 USD.

buyer: u got anythin chaper than that i like the OS some sammy stuff u know i come from android.

seller: oh well i have a samsung xxx.

this ws just one of the many scenarios I can think right now sittig in my office there might be many.

but to all those folks who said above that Samdung can kill Windows Phoen ha ha ha it was a good joke.. WP gives Nokia a very deailed differentiation and then Nokia unique hardware capabilities.
Samsung succeded in Android not because galaxy is better than the one no not at all but due to cheap access to high spec semi conduector and marketing dollars.

The wide presence of Samdung is a big fighting weapon in its arsenal… and they can even kill apple to an extent due to monopoly over amoled, flash and other tech but Nokia products have always been greatly differentaited with unique experiences and thats what they solidified with windows phone.

sks

Not this time, because Nokia has options at many price points at almost the same experience…

linkin

oooh,these arguements..its no longer about nokia adopting andriod,its now about how samsung can drive nokia out of the windows phone market.this just points to one thing;windows phone is becoming a major player…

Random Random

It should be also about Nokia choosing Android.

If Nokia can’t deliver a true high end device in the H2 2013, they will have to consider changing the strategy. They are not forced to, but they should consider that. Currently Nokia is risking losing the high end by not delivering reasonable high end models.

After all this time it’s once again possible for Nokia to choose Android. Back in 2011 that was not an option but now it is.

linkin

well,the lumias may not be “high-end” enough in this era of octacores and 5’inch screens but they sure do the work enough to be called a good smartphone.and considering where nokia is coming from,the lumias are obviously a giant leap for nokia..also when windows OS becomes less limited(in other peoples opinion,not mine),nokia can sure heave a sigh of relief from this “high-end” talk.and by the way,nokia doesnt need andriod,its andriod that needs nokia…hahahahaha.